Romanticism and the Letter, ed. by Madeleine Callaghan and Anthony Howe (review)

Abstract

is like the present, although the past always appears a pale imitation, and this implied linearity can seem like an unyielding march forward in time. What if earlier narrative forms are not imperfect articulations of the future but expressive of a distinct vision of reality and thus of life writing? In other words, what if medieval life writing was experimental on its own terms? My questions mean that I would have liked the book to demonstrate a more complex choreography between the past and present, which would have complemented Winstead’s insistence upon genre instability in lifewriting modes, regardless of time period. Still, this book is part of a series that aims to survey bodies of literature defined by literary time periods, which necessarily constrains Winstead’s arguments. More than once, for instance, she observes that the twelfth century proves a pivotal century when life writing transforms in one way or another, yet she does not explain why such transformations occur in that century as that is beyond the book’s purview. A survey, after all, observes, yet it does not necessarily explain what it details. In that sense, Winstead’s book is importantly productive: she opens lines of thinking about the literary history of life writing that invite readers to explore more, to pick up a line of thought and develop it. She ultimately has crafted a highly readable book that not only demonstrates the range of life writing during the long Middle Ages but also activates challenging and constructive questions about genre and its social role.